Has Mark Bielefeld, MD received payments from drug or device companies?

Yes. Drug and device makers reported $3,215 in general payments to Mark Bielefeld, MD across 50 transactions between 2019–2025. Most Open Payments records nationally are meals worth under $20; a reported payment is not evidence of wrongdoing.

Does a payment mean Mark Bielefeld, MD did something wrong?

No. Federal law requires drug and device makers to report almost every transfer of value to a physician, including a $14 sandwich at a lunch presentation. Consulting fees, research funding and royalties to device inventors are ordinary, legal parts of medicine. This site reports what was disclosed; it makes no allegation.

Where does this information about Mark Bielefeld, MD come from?

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Payments come from Open Payments, published under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. Billing and prescribing figures come from the Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners and Part D Prescriber public use files for 2024.

Mark Bielefeld, MD

Thoracic Surgery (Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery) · Corpus Christi, TXNPI 1538255229

Payments from drug & device makers

$3,215in general payments, 2019–2025

Across 50 payments — averaging $64.29 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.

Abiomed$1K
Atricure, Inc.$912
J.m. Longyear Manufacturing, LLC$675
Medtronic$125
Baxter Healthcare$118
Cvrx, Inc.$108
plus $94 from 3 others

What the payments were for

Consulting fees$67521%
Food & beverage$2,54079%

Most of this is food and beverage — typically meals provided during product presentations at a clinic or hospital. Nationally that is the single largest category of reported payments by count.

General payments by program year

Who reported the general payments

Companies are grouped under their corporate parent — a single manufacturer often files under several CMS reporting entities. Research and ownership payments are counted separately and are not in this table.

Company	Payments	Total
Abiomed	22	$1,183
Atricure, Inc.	13	$912
J.m. Longyear Manufacturing, LLC	1	$675
Medtronic	6	$125
Baxter Healthcare	2	$118
Cvrx, Inc.	1	$108
Getinge USA Sales, LLC	2	$48
Edwards Lifesciences	2	$30
Johnson & Johnson	1	$16

What the payments were tied to

Products named in the reported payments. Only payments of $100 or more are attributed here — the typical reported payment nationally is a meal worth about $16, and listing those product-by-product would be noise.

How this compares

$3,215 in reported general payments places this provider in the 35th percentile of 424 thoracic surgery (cardiothoracic vascular surgery) providers in Texas.

See all thoracic surgery (cardiothoracic vascular surgery) providers in Texas →

Medicare billing

Part B allowed, 2024

$134,229

Medicare patients

166

Services billed

457

What this is not: this is the amount Original Medicare Part B allowed for services this provider billed in 2024. It is not their income. It excludes Medicare Advantage — now more than half of all Medicare enrollment — along with Medicaid and all commercial insurance, and it is gross practice revenue before staff, rent, supplies and malpractice premiums. CMS also suppresses any figure covering ten or fewer patients, so low-volume providers appear smaller than they are.

Most prescribed under Part D

Drug	Claims	Cost to plans & patients
Duloxetine Hcl	11	$209
Gabapentin	15	$197
Acetaminophen-CodeineAcetaminophen With Codeine	11	$64
Tramadol Hcl	13	$62
ClopidogrelClopidogrel Bisulfate	11	$52
Furosemide	15	$44
Metoprolol Tartrate	15	$27

Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.

Other thoracic surgery (cardiothoracic vascular surgery) in Corpus Christi

J MoralesCorpus Christi$103K
Robert SmithPlano$2.9M
Michael ReardonHouston$2.7M
William RyanPlano$2.1M
Faraz KerendiAustin$1.6M
Robert HebelerDallas$1.2M
William BrinkmanPlano$1.2M
Robert RipleyHouston$817K
Michael MackPlano$796K
Katherine HarringtonPlano$723K

See the full list for Texas →

Where these figures come from

Payments: CMS Open Payments, program years 2019–2025 (publication P06302026_06032026).
Billing: Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners, data year 2024. Original Medicare Part B only.
Identity: NPPES NPI Registry, July 2026.

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